


we follow our own steps (while our shadows keep watching us)

by Mx_Carter



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Aziraphale and Crowley are woman-shaped beings of the world, Christmas, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Existential Crisis, F/F, Friendship, brief mention of neo-Nazism, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mx_Carter/pseuds/Mx_Carter
Summary: “For fuck’s sake, Crowley,” Anathema said finally, “is this actually about Zira?”It's nearly Christmas. The perfect time for a rage-induced bender.





	we follow our own steps (while our shadows keep watching us)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tonytonesphoneroo5000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonytonesphoneroo5000/gifts).



> Soooo this is Cats' christmas present. She asked for lesbians and pining and desperate kissing, so i rubbed my hands together in glee and managed to only do 2 of the 3 despite it being more than a month late. Babe I adore you and hope you have fun with all the jock shit.
> 
> Title from Big Houses by Squalloscope

Anathema Pulsifer-Device did not do cross, as a general rule. She’d had her moments back in the day, but twenty-seven years after the Little Apocalypse That Couldn’t she was a far mellower woman. That is, until you pissed her off.

Crowley wasn’t one hundred percent sure she’d pissed Anathema off but she was beginning, quietly, to suspect.

“There are kids that live in this house, Crowley, and I’m really trying not to make them be alcoholics. Sober up, get off the floor, and come talk to me at the table. Like a civilised person.”

“I’m actually a demon,” Crowley pointed out as she levered herself off the Pulsifer-Device’s very fluffy carpet and tried very hard not to throw up on it. “So technically I should be encouraging them to drink heavily.”

Anathema gave her a look. That look said _You know if you ever touched them you would never be welcome here again, and I’m one of the few sane people you like anymore so you need me._ It also said other things. Crowley didn’t interpret those.

Letting the alcohol dissolve into its component molecules and leak out of her pores, she stretched and wandered over in what could charitably be called a straight line. They sat down at the rustic wooden dining table – not actually Anathema’s choice, because she had a profound disinterest in interior decoration and Newt had turned out to be quite good at it, but that was another story – and Crowley got Regarded for a bit. Anathema liked to Regard people – she was almost as good at it as Zira, despite having thousands of years less experience. Crowley settled back in the mismatching and yet tastefully appropriate chair and pretended to humour her.

If this was ten years ago, she would have been able to count on Anathema getting bored and demanding answers to whatever questions she had. But ten years ago Anathema and her husband had procreated, and both of them had levelled up seemingly overnight. Nowadays, Anathema had enough patience to annoy a saint.

Crowley was not a saint.

“Alright, what is it you want to talk about?”

Anathema folded her hands on top of the table, and Crowley suppressed a wince. “Look, Crowley, I like you. Really, I do. You’re rude and disrespectful and a terrible influence on my kids, and you scare my husband shitless which is my job, and getting you to talk about anything important is like negotiating bedtime with Lizzie, but I like you. Which is why I put up with you breaking into my house and passing out on my floor three times in the last week. If you decide to break into my house and pass out on my floor tomorrow, I’ll put up with that too. But I really think I deserve to know why.”

 “Can’t you just let me fuck up in peace?” Crowley asked hopefully, resisting the urge to trace abstract patterns on the wood.

“No, I won’t, because last year at the Apocalypsiversary barbeque you told me not to let you fuck up if I could help it, and I can.”

The Pulsifer-Devices were excellent at Christmas decorations, and Crowley let her eyes be drawn to the string of golden fairy lights on the mantlepiece, weaving between baubles and pinecones and greenery from the garden and casting a warm glow over the kitchen. She’d lost her sunglasses, she realised, and couldn’t for the life of her remember when. Possibly on Day Three.

“Not that I doubt you,” she said softly, keeping her eyes on the lights, “but in this particular case, I really don’t think you can.”

“Why not?” Anathema leaned forward and put one of her hands over Crowley’s in what could only be described as a power move. “You know my advice is the best advice. Normally, you beg me for my advice.”

“Your advice is the best advice,” Crowley agreed, “but I think this one is a bit beyond you. By approximately a thousand years.”

Silence stretched out, and Crowley kept staring at the lights.

“Do you remember the Charlottesville thing? A few months back?” she asked eventually.

Anathema tensed, just slightly, but she noticed all the same. “Crowley, I’m a black woman. I couldn’t forget it if I tried, and believe me I did try.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, letting her eyes fall shut, “well. Hell just gave me a commendation for it.”

This time the silence was tenser.

“You had nothing to do with it,” Anathema said. It was pointedly not a question.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Crowley agreed, and tried not to be offended. After all, she was a demon. “I didn’t even have anything to do with them the first time, for fuck’s sake. This one’s all on you lot.”

“Crowley, no offence, but why do you care?” They’d had the talk about morality and empathy and how Crowley saw one as a fun thing that happened to other people and the other as a weird thing that happened to her, sometimes, but not nearly as much as most people thought it should, so she wasn’t offended this time.

“Like I said, a thousand years in the making.” She opened her eyes and made an effort to catch Anathema’s. “Turns out, I’m almost as terrible at being a demon as I was at being an angel.”

“You know, I really can’t imagine you as an angel. Is that bad?”

“Nope.” She’d tried to remember what it had felt like more times than she cared to admit. Every time, she’d failed. Whatever it was angels had that demons didn’t, she’d evidently lost it forever.

“It’s not that I miss it, you understand. I fell for a reason, a good reason even. Heaven was…well, it was.” It was, and it was always going to be. There was no way around that, and the only way out was permanent and really quite painful.

“So you’re not evil. That’s not exactly news.”

“Evil is just a name for a side,” Crowley replied, as she always had done and as she always had done, Anathema kissed her teeth.

“Maybe to you, but not to me. And I don’t even think you believe that, not anymore. Nazis are evil. If you’d had anything to do with them, you’d be evil too. That’s just facts.”

“It must be nice to be so certain about these things,” Crowley said non-commitally, and actually got a glare.

“Don’t do that, Crowley. Don’t try and dismiss me like that. Silly human can’t possibly understand how complicated the world is, right? Well, I live in the world. I work in it and I’m raising two children in it and I get that morality is complicated for your lot, but I also get death threats about once a month – even when I’m not writing social justice stuff, for God’s sake – and I know what evil looks like. Whatever you like to think, good and evil exist, and you do actually know that or you’d have been in Charlottesville.”

This was why Crowley didn’t talk about serious things with Anathema if she could help it. The twice-blessed human had a way of getting you to realise things about yourself that you really, really didn’t want to realise. Because it would have been so easy, to have something to do with that rally. All those torch-bearing marchers, souls blackened forever. All those watching people filling up with fear and impotent rage, just waiting to take it out on everyone around them. It would have been work worthy of a commendation.

And the very thought of it made Crowley nauseous in a way she hadn’t even though occult beings could get.

“A good demon would have done it without a second thought.”

Anathema actually rolled her eyes at that. “Look, I don’t know what you and Zira have been kidding yourselves, but long before the Apocalypse thing happened, you were bad at your jobs. Why are you still so surprised at it?”

“Not Zira,” Crowley said softly. “Zira is the best angel I’ve ever met. Good to her core, that one.”

Anathema actually laughed at that. “What happened to good being a name for a side?”

“That’s what I meant.”

“No,” Anathema said, crossing her arms. “It’s not.”

Crowley didn’t really have an answer for that.

“For fuck’s sake, Crowley,” Anathema said finally, “is this actually about Zira?”

“I just bared my blackened little heart to you, and you’re accusing me of lying? Oh, that’s rich.”

“Nope,” Anathema popped the ‘P’ sound and wouldn’t break eye contact. “I’m sure you were very truthful with me just now. But I’m also sure that you’re not above telling me about one of your issues so that I won’t notice the six other issues you’ve got on the back burner.”

“Please don’t?”

“Crowley.” And there was the Mum Voice.

“It’s not about Zira. No one said anything about Zira.”

“Well, they have now. What have you done this time?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem.”

“Wait,” Anathema held up a hand, looking almost shocked. “Did Zira think…”

“Zira fucking _asked_.” It wasn’t quite a snarl, but only sort of. She hadn’t meant it to be, but there you go. “In her reasonable voice, the _I won’t be upset if you did_ voice, even though that’s bollocks and we both know it.”

“And it hurt you.”

“It was a fair question.”

“Which hurt you.”

“I’m a demon.”

“You’re a shit demon. What did you say?”

Crowley scrubbed a hand over her face, more tired that she could remember being in a while. “What could I say? She’s known me longer than basically anyone, and she asked me _that_. I got up and left is what I did. Haven’t seen the fucker since.”

“And you got very drunk for a very long time because you’re completely over it?”

“Screw you, Device.”

“Ah, you wish.” They were both quiet for a little while, Crowley desperately avoiding eye contact.

“Do you know what I think?” Anathema said. Crowley rolled her eyes.

“What do you think, Anathema?”

“This isn’t because you’re pissed at her. Or it is, but also you’ve only just realised that you want her to hold you in the same high regard that you hold her. And that scares you, because you trusted her to know you better than that and she let you down, which could mean she doesn’t actually know you as well as you thought she did. Which you think means she doesn’t care about you like you care about her. Also, you’re scared because you care about her, and you’re probably only just noticed that because you’re an idiot.” She sat back in her chair, arms crossed, daring Crowley to argue.

“Can I sleep on your sofa?” Crowley asked instead.

Anathema sighed, deep and exasperated. “We have a spare room.”

“I want to sleep on your sofa.”

“Alright, you do that, Crowley.” Anathema didn’t hug her, but she looked like she was seriously considering it. Crowley nixed that idea by stumbling over to the sofa and dropping into its squishy depths with an inappropriate sigh.

A minute later, a fleecy blanket landed on her face.

“You know you’re always welcome here. Even when you’re being an idiot”, Anathema said from the stairs. Crowley didn’t say anything, and soon she heard Anathema’s footsteps recede up the stairs, back to bed and her husband.

Crowley arranged the blanket, closed her eyes, and blanked her mind through sheer force of will. Even so, she lay awake in the dark for a long time.

 

~~~

 

For as long as Crowley cared to remember, the angel had been there. And they were on opposite sides, and it had been fine. They had their Arrangement, and they both knew exactly where they stood, no questions. Zira was the angel, a presence in Crowley’s life that she’d never quite been able to convince herself to get rid of, an opposite, an enemy who wasn’t. A drinking buddy. The only being of any creed that Crowley had ever met who _got it,_ whatever the fuck _it_ was.

There weren’t many angels or demons doing permanent fieldwork assignments. They came, they stayed a bit, but none of them stuck around very long. And as fun as humans and adjacent supernatural beings were, sometimes you just needed someone who was there when it all kicked off and who liked the same alcohol you did.

Someone who was safely on the other team, out of reach of whatever temptations you happened to be in the mood for, but was also right there in front of you, saying stupid things and feeding ducks.

And then the Apocalypse had completely failed to happen, and that sort of fell apart, a bit.

She’d fallen, hadn’t she, way back when. That was meant to be it. You started out on one side, you picked the other, and there you were. Crowley had thought she’d had her crisis of faith.

She hadn’t really counted on having another one.

Crowley hadn’t submitted a report in almost two decades. She tempted, sure, because it was fun, but not as a _job_ , just as a sort of hobby. She wasn’t actually going to quit, that would have been close to suicidal, she was just going to…ghost Them, essentially, and trust that Adam’s surprising amount of affection for her would prevent most of the repercussions that came with deciding not to do your job anymore.

Only, thing was…

Well.

If Crowley was on Crowley’s side and no one else’s, which was sort of where this was heading, then Zira wasn’t The Enemy. Or the Other Team’s Guy. The Opposite Number. Zira was…

Zira. Someone else. Someone Crowley didn’t know what to do with anymore.

 

~~~

 

Crowley woke up three days later, to an argument in the kitchen and a child sitting in front of her face.

She blinked. The child blinked back, then turned and yelled, “Mum, Crowley woke up!”

“Brilliant!” Anathema yelled back. “Now I have a sofa to threaten your father with tonight!”

Shading her eyes, Crowley pushed herself upright. Folded clothes and a few action figures fell off her onto the floor. “Which one are you again?”

“Delilah,” the child said. “Why did you go to sleep for three days?”

“Because I felt like it,” Crowley said, and contemplated braving the kitchen for some coffee. The argument was in full swing, and Crowley was allergic to domestics.

“But sleep’s boring,” the child told her.

“Not if you do it properly, it isn’t.” Crowley summoned a mocha into her hand, and grinned. Ah, Starbucks. She’d done good work there.

The child apparently decided it was bored and left. Crowley watched it go, feeling a bit bemused. She felt most human children would be at least a bit impressed by magically appearing mochas. Apparently she’d been spending too much time around the Pulsifer-Device kids.

That, or Anathema had passed down her unflappability. It was likely. Natural selection would probably cultivate that sort of thing.

Half afraid to look, Crowley did a quick check in the living room’s tasteful gold mirror. It wasn’t very encouraging. Whatever she currently looked like, it wasn’t Antonia J. Crowley, demon about town.

She shrugged and snapped her fingers. Clothes cleaned and mended themselves, her hair turned from rat’s nest to a style that would have gotten her a number of sideways looks in even the most stylish 20’s lesbian bar, and a new pair of sunglasses settled on her nose.

She could probably work with this.

But what to work with? She’d just done the whole bender thing, and highly doubted Anathema would let her start up again. Besides, she’d run out of steam, really. When you got to Crowley’s age, there was only so long you could lie to yourself before it just got boring.

Oh dear Someone, was this what mid-life crises were?

Crowley sighed heavily and wandered into the kitchen. When Newt saw her he gulped and walked out with a muttered excuse, and Anathema rolled her eyes and gave her a professional once over.

“You know, for someone who spent three days sacked out on my settee, you look surprisingly hot.”

“I’m always hot,” Crowley pointed out, and settled against a kitchen cabinet to sip her mocha.

“So,” Anathema said in an annoyingly casual voice, “what next?”

Crowley watched the blank grey sky, and said nothing.

“Want my opinion?” Anathema asked.

“Not really?”

In the morning’s light, Anathema’s familiar face was soft and open. At some point, she’d gotten crow’s feet.

Anathema may have been more than a little bit psychic but she was only human, really. She’d already settled comfortably into middle age, and soon she’d slip into old age and one day she would die, and Crowley would have to remember what she’d done about advice before befriending her. Most of the time, that was okay.

Crowley focused again as Anathema started talking. “Go talk to her – or you can just beat her over the head with something until she says sorry, I don’t know. This isn’t going to get solved unless you solve it, Crowley.”

“Ah,” Crowley waved a hand, “give it a century and everything will have smoothed over nicely.”

“That’s as may be, but I refuse to wait the rest of my natural life for you to get your shit together. Do it now, before my kids suck all the life out of me.”

Crowley rolled her eyes – as if, she’d be hard pressed to think of better parents than Anathema and Newt – and took another gulp of coffee. It would be wonderful to just wait and let time take care of her problems; it usually did the job better than her.

“I’ve never known you to stop yourself having things you want,” Anathema said softly. “Why start now?”

That was the thing, wasn’t it. Somewhere along the way Crowley had started to _want_ , hard and desperate, brand new and unspeakably old, and still had no idea what exactly she wanted. Maybe the only way to find out was to do something as insane and terrifying as actually, Hell forbid, _talking_ about her _feelings_.

Anathema was smirking. Shit.

 

~~~

 

Zira wasn’t answering the door, so Crowley let herself in. She had a key, but she didn’t need it.

The familiar smell of old books and wood filled her lungs, weak winter sunshine sidling through the window to make the dust glow. Particles swirling in light. Something about it was rubbing against old memories, and making Crowley’s throat feel itchy.

That, or the persistent smell of black mould, an illusion of Zira’s so potent even Crowley couldn’t avoid it. Hard to know, really.

She could almost feel Zira puttering around in the back room, the slightest trickle of a wellspring of ethereal power tucked tidily under an ill-fitting jumper. If Crowley had to guess, she’d say the angel was rearranging some of her many decorations.

Zira adored Christmas. Not just because she was, as it were, contractually obliged to, but because it made something inside her happy. Some of it was the general angel stuff – birth of Christ, goodwill to all men, upticks in charitable donations from guilty people trying to pretend they were still in the running for sainthood – but Crowley reckoned plenty of it was simple, hedonistic pleasure. Not that the angel would ever admit it, of course.

At this time of the day, and with such a low likelihood of customers, Zira would in that quiet, distracted headspace of hers, and probably hadn’t even noticed Crowley enter. She could leave, right now, and the angel would never know she’d been here.

And then Zira shoved the door to the back room open with the massive cardboard box she was holding, and that plan died a sad and ignominious death.

They sort of stood and stared at each other for a bit, Zira still holding the box, Crowley desperately trying not to bolt. It was the most awkward she could remember being around the angel for a millennium, and it made Crowley’s skin itch. Sometimes she missed the times when she could have shed it.

Zira was the first to break the silence, thank anyone who was listening. “Crowley. I…You’d better come in, I think.”

“Oh, do you?” Crowley said in what she was really trying to make a calm and friendly voice, and Zira flinched. Well, then. Crowley came in.  

When Crowley had been in here a week ago, Christmas had already strewn itself around Zira’s collection of rooms. Since she’d…been away, let’s say, Christmas had realised it had forgotten it’s wallet, come back, stayed for a drink or five and vomited all over everything. Still, Crowley was impressed with Zira’s restraint. There was far less tinsel this year, and nothing had gotten on the chairs yet. She sat down before it had the chance.

Zira dropped her box and settled in a chair opposite her. She was wringing her hands and trying to be subtle about it. Crowley reckoned she was a minute of awkward silence away from combing her messy afro into a bun. A minute after that, her leg was going to start jiggling, and then Crowley was really going to have to do something before she progressed to nail-biting.

“Are you at least sorry?”

Zira blinked, startled as an owl with a torch shoved in its face. “But of course, dear girl!” She looked down, studying her hideous carpet and somehow managing not to look at all alarmed by it. “I was sorry the moment I said it.”

“You didn’t exactly apologise,” Crowley pointed out in what she thought, personally, was a reasonable tone of voice.

“Yes, well, you walked out before I had a chance, didn’t you? Not that I blame you, really…” Zira lapsed into silence, head hung. Crowley felt a wave of black hatred for her, that even after a week of pain and rage, the blessed angel could make her feel so sorry for her. Could make her _regret_.

The wave passed as waves do, seeping into the sand and away, and Crowley thought, _well then. If I can’t even muster up some good old-fashioned demonic hatred for more than a second, I’m a little bit fucked._

“I’m sorry,” the angel said, finally managing to look her in the eye. “I really am, and I shan’t say things like that again.” She dipped her head to the awful carpet again and went on. “I know I’m difficult for you, sometimes.”

“I always thought,” Crowley said softly, “that went both ways.”

Zira chuckled. “Well, yes.”

“Oh, nice, angel.” But Crowley smiled as she said it, and then Zira was smiling back at her and Crowley realised they were okay, now. This might be the easiest fight they’d ever had, she reflected, shaking her head. No cities or forests levelled, not even a brick knocked out of place. Either they’d lost their edge or they’d taken an embarrassingly long time to get their shit together.

She could leave it here, quite comfortably. They could go do dinner somewhere, talk about whatever it was they ended up talking about when they were together and relaxed and everything was easy. Crowley hadn’t survived this long without knowing the value of taking the easy way out.

Bugger it all, she didn’t want to.

She stood up, feeling like she’d burst out of her body’s skin if she stayed sitting a moment longer, and offered her hand to Zira. The angel frowned slightly, and bit her full lower lip. Completely unconsciously, of course, so there was no reason it should make her feel so breathless. For Someone’s sake, she didn’t even need to breathe.

Still, Zira reached out and took her hand, and stood up.

Crowley sort of forgot to take a step back.

Zira was right in front of her, quite suddenly, and all Crowley could think of was the first time they’d been this close. The fall of Old Rome, when Aziraphale the Principality had slammed her against a blackened wall, soft face unnaturally twisted with heavenly rage and her own grief. The first and only time she’d actually been scared of the angel and she’d never forgotten it, not for more than a thousand years.

She was scared now. Terrified, really, but not of Zira, dear stupid angel who was looking up at her through her ridiculous lashes, nervous and confused and possibly, just possibly, intrigued. Terrified the way she’d been at that military base, twenty-seven years ago, when she’d realised that, for her many sins, she actually cared enough to put her existence on the line and _help_.

Anathema had been right. Crowley was a shit demon and had been a shit angel and probably would have been a shit human too, if she’d ever gotten the change. But that was fine, because she didn’t really want to be a demon or an angel or anything else that required rules or obedience or allegiance to anyone but the ridiculous, wonderful being who was practically close enough to taste.

Trying not to think about what she was doing, she leaned down and pressed her forehead against Zira’s. The angel smelled of dust and old books, and when she let out a sudden startled breath Crowley could smell the hot cocoa she must have been drinking before she’d showed up.

Crowley let her eyes slip closed. Beneath it all, she caught just a hint of the thin, freezing air you can only find right at the edge of the atmosphere. How long had it been since either of them had been up there?

Slowly, Zira’s arms slid round her waist. Crowley let her free arm circle Zira’s shoulders and rest against the bone there. The other arm she pulled into her chest, still holding Zira’s maddeningly soft hand in hers. She felt herself smile when she realised that they must look like they were about to dance.

They’d done that before. It hadn’t felt like this. Nothing ever had.

When Crowley leaned down, she found Zira’s face turned upwards, waiting.

And when their lips finally met, a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. Crowley couldn’t hear it, but it was there all the same.


End file.
